


Tim, Guardian of Angel Falls

by orphan_account



Series: Dragon Quest: Miami [1]
Category: CSI: Miami
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Quest IX Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25601392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There's an inscription that reads: "Our Guardian, Tim."  It doesn't look an awful lot like Tim, though.
Series: Dragon Quest: Miami [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820788
Kudos: 1





	Tim, Guardian of Angel Falls

The statue really doesn't look much like him at all—or Aquila, or any of the other Celestrians, for that matter. But then, no mortal has ever seen a Celestrian, and magic can only do so much.

Like change Aquila's name to his, with the village only one the wiser.

Tim lets his eyes roam over the statue from where he sits cross-legged at its base, following the lines of the folds in the robes and the feathers in the wings, the broader details not yet worn indistinct with the elements and time. Their hands held in prayer and wings spread benevolently, halo worn like a coronet, moss and lichen growing in little patches on the perpetually damp stone, a faint rainbow shining behind them in the spray of the falls.

Maybe this is also the ideal Celestrian form.

Where is Aquila, anyway? The register in the library said that Aquila had requested his guardianship of the mortals be terminated and his whereabouts were unknown, though he told Tim he was now watching over the entire Protectorate. Something about it doesn't sit right in his gut.

Unless the Observatory was destroyed after he fell, and none of it matters anyway.

He flops back in the grass and watches the wispy white clouds slowly drift across the pale blue sky high overhead, fingers idly tracing over the smooth wood of his lute and picking out a few random chords. When the villagers decided that his strange Celestrian clothing made him a minstrel, he went along with it—what else would he tell them he was, instead? It's not like he could tell them the truth, like they would believe him even if he did—and said that he must have lost his lute when he fell from the top of the waterfall. One of the men agreed sympathetically that it must be in pieces at the bottom of the lake by now and dug out his father's well-loved lute that hasn't seen any use since the man died a few years ago, insisting that Tim keep it. Every bard must have their instrument, after all.

Tim had never known the old man; that was before Aquila started letting him accompany him down to the Protectorate.

A gentle breeze picks up, the dancing grass brushing his cheek and tiny droplets of river spray dotting his skin. He absently wipes away one that landed on his brow before letting his hand fall back to his lute. The aimless, lilting melody he plays, capricious as a feather drifting on the wind, meanders into something reminiscent of home.

His wings still ache, when he thinks about them. Feathers fly away in flurries, carried upward on currents, when he closes his eyes, and he quickly opens them again. But the view of feathery white clouds floating high overhead isn't much better. He strikes a series of harsh, discordant chords, drowning out the lingering afterimage and the prickling behind his eyes, his heart twisting in his chest.

Angel Falls.

Somehow, he can't even find it in him to appreciate the irony.

**Author's Note:**

> The song that he ends up playing, that reminds him of home? It's very similar to [Heaven's Prayer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiFr2kShh9Y), the Observatory theme. Because I've been listening to it on repeat and it's making me hella nostalgic and also I said.


End file.
